


A Little Magic And A Trick Or Two

by LayALioness



Category: Original Work
Genre: Dark Fantasy, Dragons, Fantasy, Horror, Science Fiction, Selkies, Space Pirates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-08 21:14:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 6,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5513540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LayALioness/pseuds/LayALioness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Short story blogrates from my tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Graveyard Was Full So They Made Me Come Back

**Author's Note:**

> I started doing blogrates on [my tumblr](http://tierannasaurusrex.tumblr.com/) and these are some of those. Titles are from each person's blog, this one's for majesticbeastly

The rain always makes your head ache.

It seeps down through the soil and pushes you up, up, up, dislodging your pieces until you’re a million jagged white hills poking out through the grass. At least the moon is out, so this time you won’t get burned.

The rain always makes your head ache. It wakes you from whatever dreamless sleep you’d been having–or is it sleepless dream? You can’t remember. You can’t remember a lot of things, these days. Every minute another memory slips away from you and into the earth, like water. Like the rain.

You’re not sure what happens to them; if they evaporate and move into the clouds, to become new memories for new people–or if they stockpile beneath the earth like groundwater. You don’t know. You’ve never been down that far.

The rain makes your head ache, but it also makes it easier to call through the world. To send a message. It’s hard for people to hear you when you’re six feet underground.

There’s a girl in the graveyard. Visiting a relative, probably, judging by the wilted flowers in her hand. There’s mud on her shoes and the hem of her sundress but she doesn’t seem to care. She’s carrying some sort of umbrella, but you can’t tell what color. Everything is washed in gray, these days. Like dirt and worms and rain. Gray is your world now, and sometimes you can convince yourself that you remember what blue was like, or yellow, but the truth is those memories were some of the first to go.

You think yellow used to be warm. You wish you could taste it.

 _Come here_ , you say, and the rain helps the world clear up enough for your voice to go through. The girl looks around, searching. She’s not looking low enough. _Come here_ , you say again. _The bones. The bones._

The girl comes. She can’t help it. They never can. You don’t remember the night that you were the one in the graveyard, the one who heard the voice. You remember it was raining. You remember falling and hitting your head. You remember waking up in the box. You remember screaming.

But all of that came after. You don’t remember the words themselves, what the voice said to make you listen. It had to be good.

Yours have to be good now. That’s the only way this will work.

You want to know the color yellow again. You want to breathe real air.

 _Closer_ , you say, and the girl kneels down, getting even muddier. The flowers lie crushed under one of her legs, but she can’t care. _Would you like to know a secret?_ you ask. Secrets seem safe–people always want to know what they shouldn’t, poking their nose where it doesn’t belong.

Curiosity kills more than cats. And by now, you’re very satisfied.

 _Closer_ , you say, and you feel the ends of her wet, tangled hair brush your jaw bone. _Can you keep it?_

“Yes,” she promises. They always do. “I can keep it. I’ll keep it, I swear.”

 _I know,_  you assure her. You can feel the heat of her cheek. Just a bit more… _They always do_.

You find the rain feels much better on skin.

 


	2. Hello,

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> for bronteangel

You told yourself you wouldn’t be scared, this time. That you would prove them wrong, that you would only read the words, just once, and then hide the book again and climb back into bed, safe under the covers.

You told yourself you wouldn’t be scared this time, but yourself didn’t listen, and so now your finger’s shaking as it quickly turns the page.

You’ve never known the language. That’s how it works; you don’t know the language, and so you don’t know what you’re saying, and so all those possibilities take flight in your head. They run down through your mind and your throat and out through your mouth like swallows or moths or dragonflies. Sometimes they get lodged in the back of your throat, starve and die there. You’re coughing up hollowed cicadas for months, afterwards.

If you read words you do know out loud, nothing happens. That’s how it works, you know this by now. 

Except for this book, the one in your lap, the one with two different translations. You’ve never known which one the right one was, and somehow that’s become the loophole that haunts your dreams at night.

You could read the words so clearly, and so you didn’t expect anything to come out at all.

But then you felt the familiar buzzing in your mouth of something fighting to break free–except it wasn’t a moth or a bird or a cicada. It was a little boy.

You spoke a little boy into the world, and he spoke back. His voice was too small for you to hear what he was saying, and you’re not sure you’d even understand the words. But now you’ll never know, because he’s gone. You woke up the next morning and he had faded down to nothing. 

Spoken words only last as long as the sound of their names. 

But now you know, so you can do better. You imagine all the things the children in your class will say, when you carry a little spoken princess into the room. That’s what the book is, after all; a fairy tale. Yesterday, you spoke the hero. Tonight you’ll speak the princess–that’s how it works.

Except the princess isn’t what comes out of your mouth. What comes out is slippery on your tongue, and big enough to split your lips when it slithers out, so you bleed onto the pages.

Big enough to turn to you with a grin made up of teeth, the orange red glow in its eyes, matching the ball of it you can see on its tongue. Its claws taper out, flexing, testing the air here. It hisses towards you, like a song.

 _Why hello_ , it says, lifting a claw to your golden blonde hair. _Aren’t you just a pretty little treasure._

You promised yourself you wouldn’t be afraid, but now you can’t help it. The book falls to the floor. 

You know how this story ends.

 


	3. Be the person Bob Ross knows you can be.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> for samuellamorgandella

There was a door when you woke up this morning. It wasn’t there when you went to sleep, and you’re not sure what it’s doing there now, but it’s there, and there’s no moving it.

“Well, where did it come from?” he asks, and you glare at him. He doesn’t notice–he’s too busy staring at the door.

It’s pale blue, with white dots painted on it, that seem to fall like rain whenever you move your eyes. Each time you blink, there are different ones, just a bit off. You’re not sure if it’s just an optical illusion. Maybe you’re losing your mind.

That’s why you called him, to make sure you weren’t crazy. And if you are, at least you’re not the only one.

“How would I know?” you snap, even though he doesn’t _really_  deserve it. He doesn’t seem upset though; he’s used to you by now.

“Where does it go?”

“I literally have not done anything except call you,” you say, again. You’re not sure he heard you the first time. “I haven’t even moved from the couch.”

You fell asleep on the couch last night, which is why you noticed the door in the first place. If you’d fallen asleep in your bed, you would have stayed in their for hours, fucking around on your phone or your laptop or maybe actually doing the homework that was due two days ago. Probably not, though. You wouldn’t have left the room until you got hungry, or had to piss, so you wouldn’t have seen the door for hours.

“Maybe it’s a prank,” he muses, and you hit him. You’d only called him because you thought he might be helpful–he’s done a lot of acid in his lifetime. He probably knows what to do when weird shit happens, like magical doors appear, somehow suspended in the middle of the room. You really should have known better; he’s only ever been good for weed, and last minute coding.

“Who would prank me? You’re literally the only person I know.”

“You say _literally_  too much.”

“I will literally punch you in the face,” you declare, and you actually mean it. He seems to catch on, because he doesn’t disagree. “What the hell was in the pipe last night?”

“Nothing,” he shrugs. “Just some mid a buddy of mine had left over. It was too old to sell. He didn’t even think it’d work.”

“I can’t believe you made me smoke expired dumpster weed,” you say, and he grins a little.

“You weren’t complaining last night.” He stands up and crosses over to the door, reaching out to stroke its wood a little–or at least you think it’s wood. It has some grain to it, but that might just be paint texture or something. You’ve seen HGTV. It can happen.

“What are you doing?” To your disgust, you actually sound _nervous_. But the truth of the matter is, you are. 

“We’ll never know if we don’t check, right?” he asks, not sounding nervous at all. He might still be high, he smokes more than you do. "Come on, don't back out on me now--be the person Bob Ross knows you can be."  _Definitely_ still high, then.

You scrub a hand down your face. You can’t remember the last time you showered, and you don’t really feel like going to Narnia or wherever-the-fuck without a hairbrush, or some tampons or good running shoes. You should probably brush your teeth too, your mouth tastes like stale ass.

“Be careful,” you warn, grabbing the blanket off the sofa to drag along. You’re not sure why, but at least it’s something. What if you get cold?

“It might not even open,” he says, and he even sounds a little cheerful, like he’s actually _excited_  about it.

You grab his arm and squeeze, probably too tight though he doesn’t pull away. He reaches for the doorknob, and it turns.

The door clicks open.

 


	4. Selkie AU Club

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for booh-badley

When you’re seven years old, you and your sister stay at your grandmother’s for the summer.

“It’s just for a few weeks,” your mother promised, even though the visit stretches all the way till September, in the end. Your sister, older and more world-weary, just rolls her eyes. She’d been hoping to spend the summer flirting with the teenage boy who works at the supermarket down the block.

You find the girl in the middle of July. There’s frost on the ground, just a little as winter is coming to an end, and you crunch your way over towards the water. 

Your grandmother’s homestead is on the beach, but not like the one your family vacations at sometimes in November. This one is barren, and empty, and gray even in the summer. The rocks poke up like broken bones, through the murky water. The constant fog makes everything wet. The thorn trees whistle in the wind like a haunting Barbershop Quartet.

Your sister is at the very edge of the hard-packed sand, squatting and poking at something with a bit of driftwood. You get closer, to try and get a better look at it over her shoulder–but you still can’t really tell what it is.

It looks like a sort of jacket, made out of something shiny and dark, like rubber. It’s tangled up in a clump, caught on a bit of jagged stone, with the ends still trailing in water with each coming tide. Like it’s reaching out back towards the ocean, trying to get free.

“What is it?” you ask, wrinkling your nose a little. It smells like the fish market.

“Beats me,” your sister shrugs, and then takes off her sweater to bundle it up close to her chest. “But I called dibs already.”

“It doesn’t count since I wasn’t there,” you argue, but just sigh a little as she carries it away. It’s not like you even _wanted_ it, but. You hate it when she wins, just on principle. 

You’re still watching her fade off in the distance, in the dusty blue light of sunset, when you hear something whisper, over by the rocks. By the shivering, skeletal limbs of the fever tree. 

You look around, squinting to see in the dimness, but it’s not until something grabs at your ankle, that you see what it is.

It’s a girl. There’s a girl in the water. She shrinks back when you jump at her touch, like _you’ve_  scared _her_. She looks older than you, but not by much. Maybe the same age as your sister. She’s naked, or at least she looks naked. It’s hard to tell, since most of her is in the water, but her arms and her shoulders are bare, and brown, dusted with dark spots like freckles, but a little off, somehow. 

Everything about her seems a bit off–her eyes are too wide and round and dark, two huge black circles on either side of her nose. Her nose is too wide too, and flattened at the tip, like a muzzle. Dark like one, too. Her hair hangs in wet tangles.

She looks nothing like your fairy tales, but that hardly matters. You know exactly what she is. You’ve read all the stories.

“I’ve lost my coat,” she says, and your language sounds odd on her tongue, like it doesn’t belong there. Like the words are too big for her mouth. “Do you have it?”

There’s an old leadwood out back, dead and hollow, where your sister likes to hide her treasures. At first, it was smooth river rocks that caught her eye, or flower crowns made with dried grass. Lately it’s been issues of Tiger Beat with lipstick prints on all the boys’ faces, and the make up their grandmother won’t let her wear.

“No,” you say. The sun’s all but gone by now, but you can still see the girl’s outline, the shiny gloss of her eyes, the small webs between her dripping fingers. 

“But I know where to find it.”

 


	5. Lover of Wisdom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for sophophiliac

You’re not really sure what you’re doing here; you only came at the last minute, and only because she was whining so much about wanting to come see the guy she likes, but not wanting to go alone.

“Come _onnnnn_ ,” she’d begged, using the voice she knows always gets under your skin. It’s the voice she used to make you pierce your ears at that shopping mall, which got you an ear infection for your trouble. But you still can’t say no.

“It’s supposed to be good luck for romance,” she adds, waggling her brows like that’s some sort of incentive. You pretend you’re not really interested, but neither of you are fooled. “It’s like, ten times as potent as that one fountain in Rome. A whole skyful of falling stars? It’s _bound_  to do something.”

You know she’s right. You’ve read all the articles. It’s all anyone talks about in school. All the current events projects in History have revolved around the stars. Everywhere you go, the news station’s turned on, as meteorologists track the progress, probably excited to have something more than just a five-minute spot at six in the morning, telling people to wear their jackets or bring an umbrella.

And wherever science goes, romance seems to follow, you’ve learned. Especially with stars. You _know_  they’re just burning gas, that they’ve already been for ages before they start dropping, but. It’s so easy to believe, sometimes, that there might be more to it. More than physics, or chemistry. Something you don’t learn about in school. Something a little impossible.

The party’s at the biggest house on your block, and the boy she likes is here so you lose her almost instantly. It’s a little annoying but you don’t really mind–hanging out alone in a corner still beats playing third wheel. And there are those little alcoholic Capri Sun pouches, that taste like raspberry, so you grab one and wait.

You wander along through the first floor, sliding between bodies pressed together and grinding on the dance floor, or paired off along the walls, trying to take advantage of whatever luck that falling stars might carry. You finish your first drink and grab another, and you ate some leftover lasagna for dinner but that was _hours_  ago, so your mind’s feeling a little blurry around the edges, and warm.

Outside, people are propping up ladders to climb onto their roofs, or scaling trees to drape along the limbs like wet towels. Girls are trying to get up in flip flops and dresses without flashing their underwear. Boys keep falling, trying to show off.

You make your way down the wrap-around porch, where couples have found solace in the brown wicker furniture, cuddled up under blankets, and watching the sky. There’s an old wooden ladder right at the end, and you climb it, careful not to lose your grip on the aluminum pouch, careful not to look down. It wouldn’t be a far drop and not even a dangerous one, but. You’d rather not test it, just the same.

There’s a boy on the roof, and he barely shoots you a glance when you sit down beside him, thighs bare on the roof tile. He nods a little, before tipping his face up again.

You’re near to properly drunk by now, and your mind barely registers the freckles scattered across his skin, mirroring the constellations in a way that might be _ironic_ , but you’re not sure. You’ve never had a good grasp on the concept.

Down below, the record switches and Twenty-One Pilots leaks out into the air. You recognize the song but you can’t remember the title. You start mouthing along to the words.

“It’s supposed to be good luck, you know,” the boy says, suddenly, still staring at the sky.

“I think it’s a little sad,” you admit. The idea of a night with no stars, nothing to look to when you tip your head towards the sky, nothing to study in those cheap vague astrology posts in teen magazines, or in astronomy classes online, is very unappealing. 

“Do you believe in it?” he asks, and he waves an arm wide towards the whole world in general. He looks over at you, waiting, and you hum.

“I don’t know,” you say, and he seems satisfied. “I guess we’ll find out.”

“Yeah,” he agrees, quiet, leaning in. His lips brush yours as the first star falls.

You remember the title. When you pull back and open your eyes, the whole world’s lit up silver. Stars drip down like hot wax, leaving a trail of shiny dust behind them like baskets, to carry wishes in like eggs.

 _Fall Away_ , you think, letting him pull you in again as the sky continues raining. _Fitting_.

 


	6. Up All Night, But Unlucky

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for your-url-is-problematic

“I’ll ask you one more time,” he says–growls, really. “ _Where is it_?”

Normally, you’d speak your mind, or come up with one of the sarcastic one-liners you’re known for. But with a gun against your head, that option is looking less and less appealing. 

Your first mate has no such qualms.

“Up your ass!” he says, and it isn’t really the wittiest response he could’ve come up with, but it makes you laugh just the same. You both end up pistol-whipped for your trouble.

“I’m not gonna say it again,” the highwayman starts, grinding each word through his clenched teeth. He isn’t going to last much longer, you know. Sooner or later he’ll decide it’ll be less trouble to just shoot you both in the head and then tear the ship apart, himself.

You can’t decide which mental image is worse–getting shot in the head, or your ship being shredded by a bunch of brutes who probably don’t even know how to use a crescent wrench.

Just as you’re about to crack–not give them the _real_  answer, of course, you’re not an _idiot_ , but maybe you could trick them into going down the pod hatch or something, and lock them inside. You’re still working out the specifics–there’s an enormous metal groan, and the whole ship shudders. The highwayman almost loses his balance, grabbing the banister to keep from tipping over. Your first mate isn’t so lucky, and tumbles down to his elbows, hard.

“What the _fuck_  was that?” one of the other ones–they’ve all used their names throughout the evening, but it’s impossible for you to remember. You weren’t really paying attention at the time, too busy hiding the cargo, and trying to keep from getting shot.

“ _That_ ,” you grin, because now you have a real, _actual-to-goodness_  plan, and you didn’t even have to come up with it. Sometimes the ship has a mind of her own, which is the whole reason you bought her. And she doesn’t take too kind to strangers waving their guns around in her hull. “Is the sound of your impending demise.”

There’s a pause and then some laughter, which doesn’t seem totally fair. You think the line’s one of your better ones. 

But the lights go out soon enough, and there’s some shouting from the highwaymen, the sound of boots on metal in the scuffle; you’re up, grabbing for the nearest one, and you’re sure your first mate is too, and the engineer might have managed to climb up in the dark–she has the best eyes, after all.

Two shots ring out, but no pained yells, so either they missed their mark entirely, or two people are dead. You’re not totally sure which one you’re hoping for.

Eventually, the emergency lights kick on, casting everything in the sickly fluorescent yellow. Your highwayman is slumped against the bridge, head hanging crooked at a weird angle, lower jaw covered in drool from when you choked him out. You glance up to find your first mate breathing heavy over the second thug, with a knife wound in his neck. There isn’t much blood, which means he must’ve died quickly.

You turn to find the engineer making her way up the ladder, checking to make sure everything’s fine–or, as fine as these sorts of things can be, you figure. You both follow her back down, all the way to the front of the cabin, dragging the empty and half-empty crates from where they were hurriedly stacked up against the wall.

There’s a hole there, where the paneling can be peeled away, if one knows where to pull it. You toss the rusted metal away, and grin over at the cargo, reaching in to help her out. 

“Told you; piece of cake,” you say, hopefully reassuring. The kid doesn’t _look_  horrified, but. She’s a kid. That kind of stuff’s hard to tell, right? She could be scarred for life or something.

But she rolls her eyes, which seems like a good sign. “Piece of cake with bullet holes,” she points out, stretching a little. The hiding spot’s mostly used for rum running and counterfeit money; not little girl with weird mind powers she can’t really control.

“Yeah, well,” you shrug, turning back to take care of the bodies. “Never claimed the cake was _good_.” You kick at the dead highwayman’s boot. It’s a good pair, and sturdy. You might keep them. “Just another Monday.”

Your first mate frowns. “It’s Wednesday.” You shrug, bend down, and start unlacing the first shoe. 

“Just another one of those, too.”

 


	7. Eris.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for harmoneris

“The spiders are getting in again,” you say, sigh really, switching to hold the phone pressed between your cheek and shoulder, so you can use both hands. You’ve caught one of the spiders under an old coffee mug that was sitting on your dresser. It’s three days old by now, and probably molding, but you don’t think the spider will care. Now you’re searching for a sheet of paper or something you can slide under the lip, to carry it out to the toilet.

You hate having to flush them, but you can’t send them back through the tear, and the alternative is–you shudder a little– _not pleasant_.

If they were to get out, if they were to end up in some apartment that isn’t yours, or even the front garden, you’re not _really_  sure what would happen, but none of the possibilities are good. 

Technically, even you’re not supposed to be so close to them, but years spent living with the tear has given you some sort of mediocre protection. They don’t seem that interested in you; sometimes they don’t even notice you at all, which. Well, give thanks for small miracles, and all that.

“How many this time?” His voice is a little grainy, because he refuses to _give into capitalism_  and just buy an iphone or something, instead living on those prepaid ones from Target. It’s one of his more annoying quirks, but since he’s the only other person who even knows about the tear–and the things that come out of it–you’ve learned to live with it.

“I dunno,” you frown over at the bathtub, where most of the spiders have congregated, to stare at the leaky faucet, twitching a little with each drop that falls. They’re obsessed with water, you’ve learned, even though it seems to be the only thing that can kill them. They don’t catch on fire, don’t even seem to burn, and can go without air for weeks–but they can drown. It’s unpleasant, but not as unpleasant as what might happen if they were left to their own devices.

You don’t like the way they watch the water, the way they seem to investigate the drops, forming puddles on the porcelain. Like they’re checking it for weak spots. They remind you of those veloceraptors from _Jurassic Park_ ; trying and trying and trying until they overcame the fence. 

Or maybe it’s more like they’re building up an immunity, like you did with the tear. Neither thought is very reassuring.

“Maybe eleven,” you decide. You know there are a couple who have left the bathroom, and are studying the marshmallows you put down in the kitchen. They’ll be distracted for at least ten minutes; long enough for you to flush the first, and put something over all of them. Honestly at this point, actually catching them is easy. Muscle memory. You just hope you have enough cups.

“Alright, I’m coming over,” he says, voice cracking near the middle. It’s probably the connection, or just his shitty phone.

“There’s no need,” you assure him, watching the spider swirl around and around the toilet bowl, before finally disappearing down the hole. They scream when they go–garbled and terrifying. It’s the worst part of the whole nasty business. “There really aren’t a lot. Way less than last time.”

The last time had been three days ago, which is worrying in itself. Usually you have at least a month of rest between the invasions, and most of them are five to ten spiders-thick, at most. Last time, there’d been nearly fifty, all small and scurrying quickly across the walls and tile, difficult to catch.

One of them had managed to crawl up his spine, all the way to his jawbone, before he noticed and swatted it away. You’d thought for sure it’d gotten inside–you’d nearly tied him down, just to be sure.

But he just waved you away and lunged to catch the last of them, tossing them into the toilet in waves, filling up the bathtub with water so hot it boiled, for them to roast in. 

You still checked his ears, though, with the little flashlight, like the ones pediatricians use. You’d stolen it from a pediatrician, in fact. After one of the spiders slipped down his ear canal and nested in his brain. Just five days later, and there was no more pediatrician; just a hollowed-out host, mouth and neck red from where he’d ripped into his oldest daughter’s throat.

You’re the younger daughter. You had to drown your dad in the toilet. That’s how you figured out nothing else worked.

“They’re getting smaller,” you tell him, as you capture the last. Your apartment floor is covered in overturned mugs and plastic cups and tupperware. “Faster, too.” Smaller spiders mean they can fit into smaller spaces. Faster means they’re harder to catch. Neither is a good thing.

“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” he says and hangs up, because he hates talking on the phone while he’s driving. His voice still sounds crackly. After you’re finished with the spiders, you might actually drag him down to T-Mobile or something. It’s getting ridiculous.

You glance over at the tear, grown larger over the last few months. It’s always been growing larger, but usually so steadily that the movement was invisible. But now it’s a good few inches bigger than it was six weeks ago, and you’re not really sure what to do about it. To anyone else, it just looks like a crack in the wall, maybe from water damage, or the building shifting on its foundation. But you know the truth. You know what would happen if you tried to fix it, patch it up or readjust it.

The world itself would split open, and you really don’t want to see what’s on the other side.

You hear the door open and shut, turn around with a small sigh of relief–because no matter how many annoying quirks he comes with, he’s still your one support system through all of this, the only person you can trust to believe you, to help you save the world, one batch of alien mind-controlling spiders at a time.

Except, when you look over to see him staring at the chipped mugs on the floor, he isn’t dressed sloppily in wrinkled khaki’s and a half-zipped sweatshirt. His hair isn’t frizzy, with pencils behind both ears, like he put them there for safekeeping and then forgot.

Instead, his skin’s gone completely pale, but not like he needs some more sunlight. Like he’s been completely seeped of all color. His hair’s gone pale too, just a mass of colorless white on his head. He hasn’t got his glasses on, and when he glances up at you, he looks _through_  you, eyes clouded over and sightless.

You’ve seen this all before.

There’s a glass half-filled with water on the counter, and you glance at it, but he must be able to see _something_ , because he offers a patronizing grin.

“I’m afraid that would be pointless,” he said, and you hate that his voice still sounds like his, but weirdly textured. Like it’s been injected with white noise, or the static off a television. Like a bad phone connection.

“Why’s that?” you hedge, moving closer to the glass. He crosses over and picks up the first mug, releasing the spider underneath it. He reaches a hand down and lets it scuttle around his fingers, before he stands up.

“Did you know that when we first came to your world, we could not breathe the air?” he asks, in place of an answer, and you take your chance. You lunge for the cup, tossing the contents at him, drenching his face and the front of his hair. He doesn’t even flinch.

If you can just hold him off until you get to the bathroom, until you can reach the toilet or bath, you might have a chance. You edge towards the doorway. He frees the second spider, and you watch it go straight to the spilled water, and drink from it.

 _That’s new,_ you frown. They’ve always been interested in the water, but they’ve never actually touched it of their own accord. When you look back up, he’s smiling again.

“Okay, I’ll bite,” you say, walking backwards towards the bathroom. He doesn’t make to follow. “How’d you get over the whole air thing?”

There’s something thick and sticky at your back, heavy enough to stop you from walking, and when you try to pull away, you can’t. It doesn’t take a genius to realize what it is, but you look anyway. It’s a web, like you knew it would be. There’s a giant spiderweb in your living room, catching hold of your sweater, your jeans, even your hair so you can’t move an inch. 

He moves forward now, steps until he’s right up in front of you, still smiling. You can see the barest hint of spider legs behind his teeth because _you forgot to check under his tongue_  three days ago. It should have taken longer for the spider to completely take hold of his brain, but you’re not really surprised. They’re faster in every other way these days, why not this part?

“We got used to it,” he says.

From the corner of your eye, you see the tear start to open.

 


	8. I Like This Font

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for so-not-calm

The pen isn’t really worth stealing--it’s the generic fountain kind you could find for two dollars in the checkout lines at Wallgreen’s or Family Dollar. The kind that writes two sentences before drying out.

But you don’t steal it so you can sell it, or even because you like it that much. Like most of everything you do, you steal the pen out of spite.

It belongs to The Asshat (which you affectionately refer to him as, because you actively _refuse_  to call him by name), and he calls it his _lucky pen_. It’s probably the cheapest thing he owns, between all his name-brand clothes and seven dollar Starbuck’s lattes. He uses it for everything; note taking, quiz grading, essay proofing. You wouldn’t be surprised if he slept with it under his pillow. He’s ridiculous enough, and certified _rich_ , which means he probably has a lot of weird hobbies like croquet or polo or sleeping on pens. 

Nobody really knows _why_  he calls the pen lucky. He doesn’t get noticeably better grades than the rest of them, although he is in the upper percentile, so maybe that’s something. 

Someone asked him about it once and he’d just smirked like the pretentious douchebag he is and said _if I told you, I’d have to kill you_ , like he was in some second-rate Bond film, or something. Honestly, the boy’s insufferable.

And he was being particularly insufferable that morning, asking about the bags beneath your eyes with a suggestive eyebrow wiggle--like he didn’t know you’d been up all night studying for that day’s econ exam, the prat--and near the end of the lecture he left to go to the bathroom or reapply his hair gel that smells overwhelmingly of musk. It’s probably made out of European deer glands, for five hundred dollars a bottle or something. You wish he’d choke on the stuff.

He still wasn’t back by the time the class ended and everyone started to pack up and leave--and the pen was _right there_. So you took your chance, and you took the pen, and you slipped it in your pocket.

You passed him on your way out, and you thought about waiting to watch him search under all the desks, crawling on his hands and knees, frantic. But that might have given you away and anyway, you had a spin class to get to, so you left.

You hang the pen up by the extra calendar you and your roommate use to write notes back and forth, for when you’re both too busy to gossip in person. Mostly it involves a lot of badly drawn stick figures barfing on text books, but it’s a good system, and it works for you.

Your roommate’s the one who notices, first.

“It all looks the same,” she says, staring at the calendar, and you frown, glancing up from your computer screen. You’re doing some last-minute coding for a class, and you’re pretty sure your brain’s about to leak out your ears at any moment. Your eyes have to take a minute to readjust, so you can see.

“What?”

She waves a hand, holding the fountain pen, at their messages. “Our handwriting all looks the same,” she says. “I think it’s the pen.”

You scoff; to be honest, you’d sort of forgotten about the pen, it’s just become another part of the clutter. You wonder if you should give it back soon. You’ve seen The Asshat in class throughout the last few weeks, and he looks _awful._ Bad enough that you almost feel guilty. He’s been wearing old sweatshirts with food stains, instead of his fashionable rich people clothes, with the popped collars and pressed khaki’s. He got his first 60% on a quiz the other day, and he didn’t even seem to _care_. You just wanted to knock him down a peg or two, not ruin his life. He seems absolutely wrecked about it, and he’s let his hair go all frizzy but you can’t even enjoy it, because you are too good a person.

Your roommate gestures wildly with the pen again, to get your attention, and you wonder if she’s been day drinking. Maybe the resident potheads on your floor made their famous “banana bread” and left some in the common room again.

But then she shows you, writing the same message--SUCK MY ASS, because she is nothing if not consistent--with first the stray dry erase marker they keep around for emergencies, and then the fountain pen.

And she’s right; the dry erase letters are familiar all-caps, jagged edges, while the fountain pen’s are neater and more minimalist. Honestly, they make _Suck my ass_  look almost formal.

You both dick around for a while, writing messages back and forth with the pen just to test it, and they come out identical each time, looking nothing like your usual pseudo-cursive scrawl or her aggressively edgy lettering. 

“Well,” you shrug. “So the pen’s magic. _Lame_  magic, but whatever.” As far as magical pens go, this one’s pretty disappointing, and you’re still not sure it counts as _lucky_ , but. At least The Asshat doesn’t have it anymore; that’s worth something, after all.

Suddenly it’s like a switch has been flipped, like all you had to do was _goad_  the pen, nudge it in the right direction so it could try harder, just to spite you.

You and the pen might have a lot in common.

“What the fuck did you do,” your roommate hisses, from where she’s trying not to hit her head on the ceiling. Her body starts to tilt horizontal, so she’s lying with her back against the huge poster of The David’s penis that she’d taped up there, so it would be the last thing she saw every night.

“I don’t know!” You’re still only half-way through the air, but rising steadily. You glance over at the last thing you’d written, hard to make out in between all the scribble.

 _When pigs fly!_  You’d added a crude little doodle of a pig with tiny, nubby wings, for emphasis. Apparently the pen has a sense of humor.

“Okay,” you admit, glancing down at where it sits, still uncapped, in your hand. “The pen _might_  be lucky.”

The pen looks positively smug.


End file.
